Looks like we won't be able to include this functionality in this release cycle. Although I've requested the half complete code from the developer working on this (so I can include it) I haven't received it. 

So sadly, this will most likely wait until 2.22.

Thanks for the update. Too bad this has to wait.

Reading stuff like this
http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/07/12/automatically-unlocking-the-default-gnome-keyring-pam-keyring/
and then hearing that such/similar usability improvement will not land in .20 makes me a sad panda X(

Good news everyone!

Just committed basic PAM support. It needs more testing, which I'll do over the next few days. 

Very simple support for GNOME 2.20:

 * Your default keyring and login passwords must match. 
 * The default keyring will be automatically unlocked on login.

We'll get more fancy, and track the login password automatically for version GNOME 2.22.

I had earlier thought that due to string freeze adding a feature like this would be impossible, but since this is a low level module without any strings...

I didn't use the pam_keyring code. Jon Nettleton has been really busy with other stuff. But primarily I didn't want the PAM module to link to any external libraries, and also because that code is GPL, which is a gray area for loadable modules.

I'll close this bug once testing is finished. 

Tested and complete. There'll of course be things to fix on other distros and/or OS's. 

Documented here: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeKeyring/Pam

Added bug #459069 and #459071 to track future enhancements to the PAM integration (targeted for version 2.22).

Am I correct in understanding that the current code does the same thing as libpam-keyring?

I just added more changes which allow it to do much more than just the libpam-keyring stuff. 

 * Add a 'login' keyring password 
 * Automatically change the 'login' keyring password when user's password changes
 * Unlock the 'login' keyring in an already running gnome-keyring-daemon.